“I’ve got the police,” she said. “The doctor’s out. If you’d like me to call another one—”

Carlton looked up.

“What’s the good of a doctor?” he said. “She’s gone, isn’t she? And I want that key, Miss Adams. You’re not on this case now. She’s my mother, and she’s alone. I’m going in to stay with her.”

He got up, looking determined, and held out his hand.

“No one is to go in there,” Hilda said. “Inspector Fuller said—”

“To hell with Inspector Fuller.”

It might have been ugly. He was advancing on her when a siren wailed as a radio car turned into the driveway. Susie spoke then.

“Don’t make a fool of yourself, Carl. That’s the police.”

William went down the stairs. He looked old and stooped, and his shabby bathrobe dragged about his bare ankles. When he came back two young officers in uniform were at his heels. They looked around, saw Eileen in her bed, and started for the room. Hilda stopped them.

“Not there,” she said. “In here. The door’s locked.”

She gave them the key, and they unlocked it and went in, to come out almost immediately. One of them stayed outside the door, surveying the group in the hall with an impassive face. The other went down to the telephone. With his departure everything became static, frozen into immobility. Then Jan moved.

“I can’t bear it,” she said brokenly. “Why would anybody do that to her? She was old. She never hurt anyone. She—”

She began to cry, leaning against the screen and sobbing brokenheartedly, and with the sound the frozen silence ended. There was small but definite movement. Carlton lifted his head, showing a white face and blank eyes. Susie felt in her draggled dressing-gown for a cigarette and then thought better of it. And Hilda pulled herself together and went in to look at Eileen. She was conscious, but her pulse was thin and irregular, and Hilda mixed some aromatic ammonia with water and gave it to her.

“Let me out of here,” she gasped. “I’m all right. I want to go home.”

“Better wait until morning, Mrs. Garrison. You’ve had a shock. And anyhow you oughtn’t to move about. You know that.”

Eileen’s eyes were wild. They moved from Maggie and Ida back to Hilda.

“I’m frightened,” she gasped. “You can slip me out somehow.” She tried to sit up in the bed, but Hilda held her down.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she told her. “The police are here. They may want to talk to you.”

“But I don’t know anything about it,” Eileen gasped. “I’ve been dead to the world. You know that.”

“Of course I know it,” Hilda said gently. “They’ll not bother you much. I’ll tell them.”

Eileen relaxed. She lay back against her pillows, her eyes open but the pupils sharply contracted from the morphia.

“How was she killed?” she asked.

“Never mind about that. Try to be quiet.”

The second policeman had come up the stairs, and from far away came the sound of another siren. Hilda walked to the window over the porte-cochere and looked out. The rain had almost ceased. It was dripping from the roof overhead, but the wind had dropped. The room was hot and moist. She raised the window and stood staring outside.